Research

Founded by a Waterloo engineering student and a Waterloo science student as a senior-year project in 1990, the program is now one of Canada’s largest science and engineering summer camps for students between Grades 1 to 9.

Date: Wednesday, July 22, 2015
Time: 7:30 to 11 a.m. – speeches begin at 8 a.m. and tour of ESQ camp tours begin at 9:30 a.m.
Location: Sedra Student Design Centre, Engineering 5, University of Waterloo.

Four student teams compete Saturday (July 18) in a parking lot beside Engineering 5 to see which one of them has the better road-ready, quick-thinking, robot. 

The annual International Autonomous Robot Racing Competition is a two-day event in which four student teams will compete to see which of their robots can out-maneuver and speed to victory in a series of circuit and drag races.

The term ‘plug and play’ — which suggests various pieces of computer hardware can be snapped together with ease — had a dubious history in the technology industry. What’s often described as plug and play turns out to be more difficult to use than expected. If Calvin Chu is successful, however, people will soon be combining technology in ways that make Lego pieces look complex in comparison.

Although texting, emailing and streaming movies wirelessly may all seem to hinge on highly-powerful and efficient technology, today’s wireless systems actually have much in common with low-tech walkie-talkies. They either send or receive data—never at the same time, which means they are one-way.

With no breaks and G-force speeds, the sport of track cycling kicks biking into high gear. But with a limited number of velodromes in Canada, it has long been out of reach for even the most adventurous of recreational athletes — until now.

This summer, Waterloo researcher Luke Potwarka will lead a unique project designed to leverage the legacy of the 2015 Pan Am Games and bring track cycling to athletes across the Greater Toronto Area.

As officials gear up for a $4-million anti-doping program at the Pan Am Games, a team of chemists in the University of Waterloo’s Faculty of Science have developed a saliva test that could be cheaper, faster and an alternative to urine tests.

The revolutionary technology, which involves a specially coated  sampling device that sits under the tongue for five minutes, would make it harder for athletes to cheat.

The study, which appears in a special mental health issue of Healthcare Management Forum, found that almost one in four psychiatric patients in Ontario hospitals are restrained using control interventions, such as chairs that prevent rising, wrist restraints, seclusion rooms or acute control medications.

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A rendering of the new Science Complex at Waterloo.

The new $95 million Science Complex will expand laboratory space at Waterloo by more than 40,000 square feet for innovation in bio-based chemistry, materials and nanoscience, quantitative biology, metagenomics and synthetic biology.

First came the laptop, which we could close by folding down the screen. Then came smartphones and tablets, which fit into many pockets and bags. The next stage, according to Elahe Jabari, are electronic devices that act much more like paper and can be folded, rolled up or even crumpled up in a ball, potentially changing what we mean when we describe technology as “portable.”